The written press hasn't had a better Leveson inquiry day, start to finish, than the one where its friends in broadcasting appeared. What did Lord Patten of the BBC Trust think of statutory regulation for Fleet Street? "It would be preferable not to have [even] a statutory back-up because we should be able to exercise self-discipline in our plural society, which doesn't involve politicians getting involved in determining matters of free speech."

And Mark Thompson, his director general? Quite apart from taking the same clear stand ("It is important for the plurality of media in this country that the press is not constrained"), he showed, with some force, how the BBC could spend £310,000 on private eyes over five years pursuing public-interest stories with a public-interest defence. In short, that too much generalised back and forth over blagging and data protection is just that: name-calling rather than evidence, offered case by case, of something wrong.

John Battle, head of compliance at ITN, saw both sides of the media moon in his time as a lawyer for the Mail and TV news and knew exactly what to conclude. The ethical cultures in TV and Fleet Street "are not as different as you'd think. The main differences are in the architecture of the organisations".

Crisp conclusion: good journalists, whether working in print or on air, are brothers under the skin – though you'd never guess that from some of the ritual sniping that comes from both sides. Perhaps, in the fullness of time, those papers who bash the BBC and ITV hardest ought to say thanks for the testimonial. But do not, alas, hold your breath.

■ Lucian Freud, LS Lowry, Francis Bacon, Philip Larkin, JB Priestley … the list of the artistic great and good who didn't want a gong from HM stretches majestically on. "Snobbery" say defenders of honours with a sniff. More like principle, you guess. Those who think journalists – on principle – shouldn't take knee-bending rewards for doing their job will be cheered to see Hubert (Hugh) Cudlipp turned down a knighthood from the very PM, Harold Wilson, his Mirror papers had done so much to elect. Publish and be damned, to be sure; but kow-tow and another sort of damnation follows.